Mateo Santiago novel · Chapter 10 of 24

Chapter 10: The Voice

The Council adjourned the vote to the Winter Moon, and I got up off the floor with my face on fire.

Nobody helped me.

It was Mateo's rule, I realized later, because the first hand that touched me would have looked like pity.

I walked out of the church on my own legs with my chin up and every Alpha watching.

At the door the Hondo Alpha stepped into my path.

He was a thin man with a gray ponytail, and he pressed a business card into my hand without a word.

On the back, in pencil, he had written: If you find out about the coffin, call me.

Then he went back inside.

Mateo drove us home in silence.

I sat with my arms around my knees and watched the dirt road unwind in the headlights.

I was not crying.

I had gone past crying into something white and dry and shaking.

"He was afraid," I said.

"Yes."

"The Hondo Alpha looked at him like a man doing sums, and he panicked."

"Yes."

"And it worked, Mateo," I said, my voice rising.

"The whole church forgot the coffin, and I'm the one who has to live with it."

"Sofia," Mateo said.

"I'm pulling over."

He pulled over on the shoulder, under a stand of cottonwoods, and I turned in the seat to face him.

"Dig it up," I said.

"Sofia."

"Do it.

"Whatever's under there, whatever he put his voice on, I want it out.

"I'll take the pain.

"I'll take anything.

"I can't kneel for him again, Mateo."

He looked at me for a long time with his hands loose on the wheel.

"No," he said.

"Why?" I screamed.

"Why does everyone else get to try and not you?

"Why am I the only person in this valley who isn't allowed to find out what's wrong with her?"

"Because nothing's wrong with you," he said.

His voice was quiet and rough.

"You keep saying that."

"I'll keep saying it until you hear me."

"I don't believe you."

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